Marilyn Cooke fell in her back yard on May 2, and she found herself unable to get back to her feet. There was no way of knowing how long she might be stuck on the ground and she spent a long night wondering how things might go.
When Jesse Carrillo, a TVEC AMI Technician, set off to make his rounds that day, he had planned a route that put his final stop near Kaufman.
“It was going to rain, and I planned to start in Canton and work my way back around toward the office,” Carrillo said. “As I drove out, I just decided to start with the closest one instead.”
Thankfully, that first stop was a courtesy visit to the Cooke residence, and a voice from the backyard calling “Help!” was enough to get Carrillo’s attention.
“This is out in a wooded area, and I just heard a woman’s voice, someone said ‘help,’” Carrillo said. “So I walked around to the back and she was there on the ground. The cellphone reception wasn’t very good, so I was trying to get a good signal to call 911 and she just said, ‘You aren’t going to leave me are you,’ and I said, no, Mrs. Cooke, I’m not going to leave you.”
“I was outside all night long,” Cooke said. “I had fallen, and when he came around the corner I grabbed ahold of him and wouldn’t let go.”
After a few days in the hospital, Cooke is back home and recovering and still independent as ever.
“I’ve been taking care of myself and I’m walking better every day,” she said. “I don’t consider anything a risk, because I like being independent.”
Carrillo noted that, even with 19 years of working in the field with TVEC members, this was a first.
“I have met so many people in this job … some really good people,” he said. “It’s not just electricity—it is really people’s lives. I felt so good that day. It poured down rain that day and she would have been out there. I’m glad I was there to help.”
